We got off to a relatively late start on our second day. The skies were clear and the temperature was hot and it got hotter as we went further south. At one point, John & Rob, Sue & I and Jonathan were ahead of the group. We rounded a corner and I saw that John had pulled over to the side of the road, trailing a huge cloud of dust behind him. Through the dust, I saw a Ford pickup with a steaming radiator. "Ah, he's helping some guy with an overheating problem," I thought. But as I got closer and the dust cleared, I suddenly realized that it was smoke, not steam that I was looking at. And then I saw flames licking out from the pickup box. Uh-oh. John was already running to the truck, his fire extinguisher in hand. In his haste, he forgot to set the parking brake but Rob took care of that just before the Land Cruiser coasted onto the highway. I looked down where my extinguisher would normally be mounted but it wasn't there. I had removed it during my recent transfer case modifications. Cursing the fact that I left my extinguisher at home, I parked my Jeep and grabbed my work gloves. If nothing else, I could help with shoveling dirt on to the fire. The flames were huge enough that I didn't think John's fire extinguisher would do the job. Surprisingly, John was able to kill most of the fire. On his instructions, I grabbed the shovel from his Land Cruiser and started pulling out the contents of the pickup box. These consisted mostly of large potted plants (no, I don't mean pot plants) and luggage. All the items were still smoldering and some were still on fire. A trucker who pulled over to help warned me to be careful where I dumped the truck's contents. The entire area was extremely dry and we could easily start a grass fire. Good thinking...it never even crossed my mind. The trucker had a larger extinguisher and went to work spraying the back of the truck while we spread out and stamped on the burning clothes (which appeared to be brand new) and other belongings. The bed liner also had to be removed since it was smoldering and partially melted. During all of this, the pickup's occupants looked somewhat dazed and didn't do much to help. When the driver asked John what could have caused the fire, John asked if he had thrown any cigarette butts out the window. The driver replied that he had, "but that was a while ago." Duh.

Jonathan extinguishes some of the still smouldering material.

John talks to one of the firemen while some of the truck's occupants look on.

A fire truck arrived and they began pouring foam on what was left of the family's luggage and clothing. That was our cue to leave. John had done his good deed for the day but there was no karmic reward to be reaped. His brave act wouldn't stave off problems he would have with his Land Cruiser on the Rubicon.

Did I mention that it was hot? Not just hot, but REALLY HOT!!! It was so hot that fire hydrants were flagging down dogs for relief. (Why yes, that was an old joke.) We were cruising on the highway with the soft top up for shade, and all the doors and windows removed and we were still baking. As we passed through Sacramento, we heard the temperature was over 100 F. The grass along the highway was turned into tinder and it burned like it, too. We saw several large patches of burnt ground on the median where thoughtless drivers probably flicked their cigarette butts. We knew there would be a camp fire ban on the trail. It was getting dark as we neared Placerville (the last big town before the trail head) so we pulled into a KOA just outside of town. It was around 9 pm so we had to do the after hours registration thing. Their process was somewhat confusing, mainly because the forms that the instructions mentioned were no where to be found. I was reminded of a room-service laundry form I once filled-out in Communist China, except that these instructions were far worse. After much head scratching and discussion, we decided we had filled-out the paperwork properly and went on to set up our camp. We were less than two hours from the trailhead which was a cause for celebrating. Hence, we consumed lavish quantities of beer before settling in for the evening.

We mobbed this water fountain at a rest stop north of Sacramento.

We're almost there! East of Sacramento, we camped just outside of Placerville.

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